By Tosin Olatokunbo
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos state worships Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu like a god. He has reasons to. The Lagos strongman and APC National Leader made him governor of the Aquatic State as Lagos is widely known, despite the efforts of then Governor Akinwumi Ambode to stay in office for another four years.
Ambode, a beneficiary of Tinubu’s godfatherism had broken ranks with his benefactor who ensured that then governor never returned to the Alausa, Ikeja Government House. In his place, Tinubu commandeered his supporters to vote for Sanwo-Olu, a political neophyte, barely known in Lagos’s political space.
Since he became governor in 2019, Governor Sanwo-Olu has done everything to please his mentor, including making outlandish statements in favor of the former governor’s presidential ambition. The governor has recently said Tinubu is the best candidate to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in his goodwill message to the former governor on his 69th birthday.
In spite of Sanwo-olu’s absolute and unwavering loyalty to his mentor, feelers are that he may not return to the government house in 2023 as efforts are in top gear to replace him with another candidate, possibly a Muslim politician from the state. Both Ambode and Sanwo-olu are Christians and by the time the incumbent completes his term in 2023, the duo would have commulatively spent eight years as governors.
According to sources from Bourdillon, Tinubu’s political headquarter, some Muslim adherents in the state have started putting pressure on the former governor to support somebody from their faith to succeed Sanwo-olu in three years time, based on an unwritten agreement that the governorship will be rotated by people of both faiths. Even though, Tinubu is yet to speak on the issue because “2023 is still far and it’s too early to begin campaign when the incumbent is trying to reposition the state after the EndSARS destruction,” one of Tinubu’s close aides told the magazine on Monday, “the issue is currently being discussed and trust that Asiwaju will not disappoint on a critical matter such as this. Be assured,” he said.
The top Tinubu’s aide spoke on the crest of a statement by the National President of the All Christian Leaders and Ministers Forum, Pastor Sam Ogedengbe that a Muslim should emerge as the next governor of the state.The clergy man believed to be very close to the former governor, spoke at the weekend at an event in the state.
Ogedengbe, who is also the General Overseer of Overcomers Pentecostal Prayer Church, Lagos said efforts are in top gear to ensure that the next governor would be a Muslim. Ogedengbe, the former Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Christian Religion, said he was among those who ensured that Governor Ambode, a Christian succeeded former Governor Babatunde Fashola in 2015, nothing that the gentleman arrangement will not be breached.
”We Christian leaders and ministers hail administrations in the state since 1999, but we will insist that Sanwo-Olu’s successor should be a Muslim in the interest of justice and equity, ”Ogedengbe said.
Since Ogendengbe made the statement last week, the magazine learnt that Governor Sanwo-Olu and some of his aides have become uneasy as the comment did not go down well with them. “Making such a sensitive political statement at this time does not augur well for all of us, particularly at a period when Asiwaju is trying to galvanise all his supporters across the country for this presidential ambition,” a close confidant of Governor Sanwo Olu told the magazine, noting however that he was not authorized to speak on the issue and that he must remained anonymous.
According to the source, Governor Sanwo-olu “is facing governance for now and has left the issue of his second term to be determined by our leader, Asiwaju and other party chieftains in the state. What is paramount to the hardworking governor is to take the state to the next level based on the brief he received from the Leader after he succeeded Ambode.”
Close sources told the magazine that Tinubu will not speak on the issue until he has successfully settled the matter over his rumored presidential ambition. But those that are close to him say Dr Obafemi Hamzat, the Deputy Governor and Tinubu’s son, Deji are on the card in case the former governor succumbed to pressure from Muslims that one of the should be governor in three years time.
Meanwhile, another source close to Tinubu said the governorship “in Asiwaju’s contemplation is not a family affair, so the suggestion that his son is one of those penciled down for the job is not true. But he will speak on the issue when the time is ripe.”
